One Dream
By: Jaime Ertel, 9/8/02

     "I drink coffee too often," she thinks. "Too often, too often, too often." She clenches the mug, envisions the ceramic exploding into millions of tiny, red butterflies.
     "I drink coffee too often," she says.
     "What?"
     "Nevermind."
     The butterflies lift off into the night sky, becoming less and less visible with each flap of their miniature wings. She watches until every last one of them has vanished, and then looks back down at the mug in her hand.
     "Fuck."
     "What?"
     "Nothing," she replies, leaning over and dumping the coffee into the marigolds.
     "In your flowers?"
     "I'm sure they thrive on coffee."

     The overhead fan dutifully swishes warm air around the room. She concentrates on a single blade, her body still as it swiftly revolves. Her mind becomes numb and her eyes, slits, as she is lifted into the air. She is now peacefully asleep on the whirling blade. The spinning comforts her, carries her far away from the world she is so reluctantly familiar with.

     "I seem to have lost my butterflies. Has anybody seen them?"

     Her mind is still swirling as she sits rigidly, staring at the sick glow of her monitor. The digital soldiers wait impatiently for their signal, for their command to fire. After a small eternity, the order is given. "Fire!" The army gleefully attacks their target with state-of-the-art, 32-bit weaponry. Irritated, she rubs a pixel-sized knife out of her eye. She admits her defeat, and watches as the pixels dance with delight, celebrating their victory over yet another dead human.

     Ear-splitting shrieks resonate through her fastened lips, her flapping arms flail out of control as she collapses to the floor. She drags herself into a closet, wraps herself in thick, winter blankets, and cries out to anyone who might hear. But her cries are muted by the bustling of the swarm. She is unable to escape the millions of tiny, red mosquitoes chewing through the thick, summer air, bursting with the blood of their victim.

     "Have I died?"
     "No."
     "Then, I'm alive." But the dread in her stomach makes obvious her self-deception.      

     The overhead fan is still, and the warm air hovers, stagnant and lifeless. Her mind has deadened in the tomblike silence. Beside her, a dream lays crumbled and broken on the floor.